Enfant Perdu
by Novelist-In-Training
Summary: 31 years after BD, Edward had become a nomad and feeds as is in his nature. Mourning for his humanity he sets off to find the meaning of it all. The journey he takes is not alone however, Leah also searches for answers of her own cursed eternity. DARK
1. Enfant Perdu

_**The Child Did Not Age.**_

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I walked along the empty streets, hands stuffed into the pockets of my coat in the way that was the modern man of this era. The illuminating light from the stores still opened even at this time of night or early day glimmered in different shades and hues, purples, reds and greens. OPEN, WELCOME all the signs shinning brightly with an almost comical quality even if it were normal to the every day man, I was not.

I had a mother once, a wife. I was human too and yet, here I am, walking alone a silhouette against the mortal shadows of the men and women who've just come from work, the prostitutes, the homeless vagabonds that lined the alleys and the streets. All perfectly human, enviably human and their scent so sweet disgustingly sweet and I feel myself parched.

I find my victim blundering out of a strip club. He is pleasantly drunk bourbon pouring from his every pore and he is beautiful in the way that only a human can be to us despite size, age, race or filth but this particular victim is very pleasing by mortal standards as well.

He has a high forehead with thick wispy black hair falling from the dramatically slicked back coif it had been in during the day. He had powerful arms hidden beneath his suit with powerful legs and a firm chest where beneath his heart beat is heavy staccato, and then there as his face. Strong square jaw, long slightly curved nose, thick brows and deep brown eyes set against his light brown face.

All in all he was perfect and his eyes reminded me of my wife when she was alive and when I had still loved her because certainly now I do not. But to leave that topic quickly and to return to my victim as you must be curious. I saw him tip his 'hat' though it was a quirk of his hand, at the large Hispanic bodyguard before walking down the sidewalk. I was surprised that he could walk and it took me a moment to get on his trail, trying not to look too fast. It was a simple trick, able to appear completely human.

We reached Central Park in what felt like a few moments, always several steps behind my victim of course. I wouldn't be caught by him until we were properly hidden in shadow. The park was the perfect place.

We reached a hidden alcove shaded even from the moon by the tree tops and various kinds of vegetation. I could see him perfectly outlined against the black.

"Why are you following me?"

I was taken off guard but I didn't show it. Of course not but still, it seemed silly to skirt around the question or to even lie. "I'm here."

"I see that." He said boldly. It occurred to me that this man might just know that I wasn't human. It could be that he saw my eyes or my skin or my lips, red and pressed against the white marble of my skin. "What are you?" Ah, so he did know!

"I am an angel sent from heaven." I said. I placed my hands together, palm against palm, fingers pointing heavenward in mock prayer the way I had done when I was a human boy during Sunday sermon. It was, of course, mocking. "Do you wish to confess your sins before you die?"

I could hear him; _demon, monster, I am going to die_. The same litany that all humans recite before they die and how excited I felt for this the desire to listen to the fount of thoughts, the memories soaked up coating my tongue and throat and I would have that sweet passion.

"You're going to kill me?"

"Yes," I answered but then he began to run. "How quaint, he is trying to flee." And I gave forth a laugh. To a mortal's ear it could be heard as a loud barking howl or screech or whatever it is humans associate the sound to hells fire with. I do not know.

I ran at a humans pace and I even gave him the courtesy of breathing but his horror was what I wanted, why I ran like this why I gave the illusion that he may live that I would not catch him. And it was delicious, this chase and his terror. He knew of course, it was easy to read, he knew that he was going to die.

He reached the edge of the park the gates clear in view black shadows standing tall until I grew a little weary. I grabbed him by his powerful waist and quickly dragged him into the brambles where we would be alone for the deed to be done. I did not want anyone to see him running. I didn't want to kill anymore then was necessary.

He struggled of course, all mortals do in the beginning before they give up the fight. He clawed at my hands slipping on the cloth of the coat, pulled at my hair and scratched at my face. Oh, what little good that did, it only excited me and I took great pleasure in hugging his body close to mine in a lovers embrace and kissed him. The venom works wonders to paralyze the victim, freezing them in place and as it worked in his mouth I took time to exam his face. Oh yes, his eyes were just like hers and I let myself drift to that lost humanity from so long ago.

I did little work of breaking the skin of his throat pulling the flesh in chunks letting the meaty bits linger in my mouth taking in their blood before spitting it out. There was blood everywhere so I closed my mouth over the biggest wound and began to suck and as I sucked I hugged him tighter until I felt the bones of his arms crush. I pulled back and dropped the corpse.

"Fly on angels wings." A voice whispered. I didn't turn my head instead I began to walk from the brambles away from the prying voice and the victim. His name had been Michael Talbot. He had been a father, twice divorced and a murderer.

"Oh Edward, that was positively stunning. Such an intimate kill! Why, I haven't seen anything like that since my own beginnings."

"Aro, why are you here? Shouldn't you be in Italy with your brothers?"

He giggled, actually giggled. "Oh I've decided to visit you after all we so seldom see one another anymore."

"Not since you killed my daughter." I said, there was no resentment in the statement or even in my voice but, deep inside where I was still human where Nessie lived, I sobbed. I shoved my hands, this time into the pockets of my jeans. "I'm leaving."

"You know it had to be done." Aro said now drifting in front of me. His hair had been tied back at the nape of his neck and his eyes were as red as they had always been. He was dressed in a smart black suit the buttons of his lapel gleamed silver. "Trying to stage a coo you know, trying to enslave the humans with immortal children. Can you imagine! Our meals would be dwindled, what else would we eat?"

"Animals?"

"Oh," He laughed. "Oh no that would not do, it is in our very nature to feed off humans Edward, surely you from anyone knows that now." His hands rested on my shoulders. "There is bad blood between us, I know."

"I watched her die."

"I know this, I know everything Edward, remember." He tapped his temple. "It was Alice that I saw the truth from I had touched her and I saw her vision. There was nothing anyone could have done to persuade your child and she would sooner have seen you dead then allow you to try to and stop her."

It wasn't anything that I had not known, I knew, deep in my soul, if I had one, that she would not have been deterred. After all, a spoiled child will not take no for an answer. She wanted to walk in the world without hiding and her resentment for humans grew and became prominent. Aro and his brother's had merely done what they had to do to save us and the humans. It was that Renesmee's life that had to end in order for the world to remain in peace and I would never forgive myself for not making it in time to save her. Her body burning and her screams haunted my waking dreams while Bella watched unchanged, unmoved and uncaring.

"How is my wife?" I asked watching for any expression in Aro's face but there was not a hint of trepidation.

"She is as she has been for these thirty years. Not emotionally involved in anything and forever hungry, of course you knew that. I say however, even her tastes in meals drives me to loose my appetite. I never did care for the children and how she plays with them. Singing to them making them believe that she is an angel sent to save them from the horrors of death only to kill them." He sighed. "Just the same as always, the way I had seen it when I touched your sister's hand."

"Alice knew?"

"Oh yes, she knew." Aro said dismissively, already bored. "But tell me, how have you been? I have heard from many of the murdered and the tales of The Angel of Death. Botticelli made him they say, he has black wings they say. He kills indiscriminately they say." As he says this his voice perks, peaked with interest and I can read it in his mind; _my Angel, be of one of mine. A companion for as long as you wish, come with me to Volterra. I love you. _

"You know I can't." My voice wavers. "I want to be alone. Go away."

But I didn't mean it. I hated being alone, since the day Bella left for Italy to learn the old secrets, since the day Alice burned herself in the meadow in a fit of insanity. Since the day I told Carlisle where to put his unfathomable completely unfounded love for human life when I left his company and the company of the only family I had left.

Thirty years ago, one year after Bella and I had been married, she left. There was no note, not a word. Simply, she kissed me, stared into my eyes then vanished. I later learned from Alice where she had gone.

I did not appreciate Rosalie's jibes, how she had been right about Bella's selfishness that she had not really loved me at all. But Rose had been right, Bella did not love me. She loved the beauty of it, the strangeness and immortal life and worse yet, she loved the blood. It was never about us it was about what I could give her. She had given me Renesmee and had fled at least she had been with us for one year, if only out of decency.

From our coven only two remained and for that I am and will forever be, truly sorry. If not for meeting Bella then we, the seven of us would have remained the happy family, though I suppose that it would have been inevitable for us to part. Jasper would always be the rogue no matter how comfortable he would have gotten with us and Rosalie would always tire of the day to day family life. It was Alice, Emmet and I that had been content in the familial lie that had kept us all together.

When Alice died everything had changed. I still don't understand why she did it, I don't really need to. It happens every so often to our kind, those who are unable to go on in the same way that they began. The fact that changes around us occur, that we must hide that we are different and must constantly down play ourselves and lie to ourselves, it gets to us it changes us. And ultimately it kills us.

Some time ago perhaps in the past ten years, I cam across a number of vampires of a different kind a much deadlier an older kind. It was in the times where I allowed myself to leave America. I had visited the Romanian's and their children and their makers. It didn't take a lot of questions to figure out that if they wanted us to die, really wanted to end us that they could do it. As our makers, our mothers and fathers they have that right to kill us.

"That isn't what you want. You don't want to be alone."

"Can you cease from reading my mind."

Aro lifted his hands from my shoulders and had to decency to look a bit embarrassed. Foolishly rubbing his cold hands together in a way that if one saw him do it would allude to something akin to normal, human but of course I wasn't fooled. He was skilled in human mannerisms only because he'd long ago mastered the technique and executed it with barely noticing the action. And out of the three brothers he appeared the most human, callus and brazen but human.

And it was such an endearing quality.

"Fine then, I will take my leave. But, if you change your mind...I've reserved the superior room in the Trump, of course." He added with a too natural human smile, his lips widening just so. "You know where to find me."

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**It might take me a week or so to add the next batch of chapters considering that I am moving to another apartment. Anyway, this just did not want to leave me, the premise seemed beautiful, Edward becoming a lone rogue vampire feeding the way that he was meant to. And having Bella's _true _intentions take root in the story was compelling, I say compelling because I have thus written a bulk of flashback chapters about the inevitable fall of Bella and Edward's relationship. About Renesmee, she was a spoiled child despite the rate of her growth. She wanted everything and thought lowly of human life. They were her bread and butter they were prey and beneath her. This isn't how she was necessarily raised but something that was ingrained within her. She was a predator and allowed herself to live as such. And you must wonder, about Jacob and what became of him?**

**He still roams angrily of course, his imprint was killed. However, it is not to say that he didn't understand as you will find in the next few chapters though he will not be integral to this story, this story is about Edward learning to true meaning of immortality. He was so sequestered and sheltered by his family that he never realized what it truly meant, not really and now that he is alone he's beginning to understand it. The madness that takes most of them the lust for blood and the knowledge that they will never know of what becomes of the human spirit, and why Alice never told him the whole truth.**

**She of course was driven mad. She didn't want to live unchanging and she didn't want to continue to pretend that she was happy when she was miserable. I wanted to make it beautiful I wanted to make it seem personal so that those of you who are not the biggest fans of Twilight of Edward himself could see the suffering in his understanding of it all. This is a dark story and in the end it may very well be that he dies from madness to or perhaps not. There was another story by** LovingTheOgre **called 'And She' that was inspiration to this, and while that one had an original character called Marion that was 'Edward's sister' the story dictates the importance of human life and the suffering of living forever. I've taken only bits of that into my own story such as 'sleep'. Edward 'sleeps' for a long time though for us it would be lost in day dreams.**

**Anyway, to get to the root of this explanation, I wanted to be honest. I was not a fan of the book series I was not Pro Bella, Team Edward, Team Jacob or Team anyone. I thought that it was superfluous in it's romance that had no basis for actual chemistry and was showy rather then anything of substance. Not to say that I hated it, I just didn't understand how one could fall in love so fast and never ever talk about the inside of a person only to constantly praise "Adonis like features". I guess I would have enjoyed the books if they would have been a little deeper if perhaps Bella would have been a little stronger and would have appreciated human life.**

**I am not bashing her in this story, not by a long shot. There are bits and pieces here in later chapters where you can relate to her and why she was so uncaring at Renesmee's murder. There is a reason for it, not to say she _didn'_t care. She did, Renesmee was her daughter, her flesh and blood. There is a reason she is the way she is just like the reason behind Alice's silence and death. It all ties into the plot of the story and the mystery that Edward unravels but like I said it may take a week or so to get the ten chapters up. At the moment they're being edited.**

**Review, no flames no complaints that I hate Twilight or any of that nonsense. If you hate the story then do not review with complaints. If you liked it however and have an open mind then review, this story isn't meant to destroy any ones views of the characters. It's an alternate universe; this is a _FAN _fiction story. It means nothing and is not meant to offend. This chapter was short as to preview what it is about. **

**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. **


	2. Les Innocents

**Disclaimer: Don't own the characters. Written just out of pure fancy-I've imagined making Edward a real vampire and a self loathing one at that. This merely introduces two characters, reinforces the old ancient longing for change and adulthood and of differences of loving companionship.**

**Rated for some sensuous themes.**

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Malloy Dwyer didn't move.

He'd learned quite a while ago that it was better to just sit, stand or lay still as his 'companion' would breeze in with a rage regarding humanity around him. Sometimes he would find himself shaken awake by Edward who would stand above him, looming figure boyish face shadowed. Edward would want to talk, would want to ask him questions regarding his inner most thoughts and family. Sometimes it would be nothing at all, merely Edward wanted to look at him and observe his sleeping face because, apparently in his time, he'd often watched his wife asleep. Edward didn't talk about Bella much but what was said was brief tid bits here and there.

"Bella enjoyed contemporary music when she was in the kitchen, cooking for no reason for no one just to cook."

"Bella liked to look at the beaches even though she'd only see it on the TV or in the magazines because she wasn't welcome in La Push."

"Bella liked to read. Sometimes, when she had still been human, she would stay awake for hours reading. She would loose track of time and suddenly it would be morning."

It bothered Malloy whenever Bella came up in conversation because he'd always been told that his sister was dead right after she married and that _those_ _people_ had buried her and had the funeral without alerting her own mother and family. The Cullen's were horrible and evil people because they hadn't allowed Rene to say goodbye. The 26 year old didn't understand why he'd been in the recent company of his brother-in-law. Forever seventeen, Edward Mason no longer Cullen, who was one hundred and forty years old, had been married to Bella who had been nearly nineteen. Bella had to have been fifty now although also forever youthful and it bothered Malloy immensely. The thought that he looked older then his own sister who was twenty three years older then he was!

When Malloy had seen Edward in Seward Park, he had been amazed. His brother in law, whom he'd only seen in his dead sisters wedding photos looked eerily un changed and for a moment Mallory thought that this must be a Cullen cousin or perhaps Edward's son from some other woman because there was no way that this boy was thirty years old. His hair was copper, bronze and unruly, his frame was perhaps lithe and healthy and he stood at six foot in height. And he looked off oddly mature for someone who had to have been a teenager; wearing boring clothes that the youth today affronted. Denim jeans on his long legs a white t-shirt hidden almost with a matching denim jacket appearing just as plain but oddly fashionable, he looked like a young model.

But, once Edward had taken notice of him had looked shocked, he vanished. Three months later while vacationing with his then fiancé in Prague he'd seen Edward again standing across a crowded street, his yellow cat like eyes staring directly at him. He hadn't run away and Malloy had realized with horror that this time, Edward had sought him out.

"She's robbing you blind." It was what Edward had said of Genève Patterson, Malloy's **then** fiancé. He'd found Malloy later that evening in a cab on his way to the airport. He had easily scooted right beside him in the back seat and had stared at him for a full minute before he spoke. It had seemed as though he were reading him somehow like someone scouring the pages of a book. It had been unnerving of course but also a little bit _adorable_?

But the moment that Edward had said it he had slipped out of the cab and for some unethical reason Malloy had dropped her. Told her that he didn't want to marry her that it didn't feel right and of course it had gone badly, how could it not? But then she'd left and in the end he hadn't really minded at all. He felt lighter somehow and he was content until he'd come home to his newly Genève free apartment to find his brother-in-law, whom he thought was a distant cousin by marriage, seated in his study a pale youthful figure amongst the floor to ceiling shelves filled with old collectable texts, maps and blue prints.

He had been going over a thick volume of Plato skimming the pages as though they were completely new and Malloy had found himself drawn to the small pile on his oak desk, the spines gleaming up at him, all of Greek Philosophy except for one, a book of pictures one that had been recently bought called Kiss by the late photographer Yuji and that was probably when Malloy realized that this boy wasn't human. He was too pale and his eyes were red and he seemed like an old man, automatically reminding Malloy of his grandfather Dwyer who scanned those same books quickly because he already knew the material and was just going over them because it had been so long since he'd seen the books.

"Is Rene well?"

"She's dead."

"Shame."

"What are you?"

"Just like your sister. You're smart, Malloy. Born a little late to your parents though, Bella would have been twenty three."

"You're her husband aren't you? Good God! What are you?"

"What do I look like?"

"You're a demon."

And then Edward had laughed, a sweet sad sound coming from his pale lips. Ancient.

"_Smarter_ then your sister I see." He said closing the book. He rounded the oak table in sure strides differently dressed this time from the youthful traveler in denim jeans. He wore a black turtleneck and dark matching slacks with pointed black boots on his feet. "You have an inkling as to why I'm here, following you." He was not a foot in front of Malloy. The boy was smaller then him, tiny waif of a thing compared to Malloy who had filled out nicely and stood at six foot five all broad shoulders, all nicely muscled with bits of light brown stubble the same shade of the hair on his head and very light lines of age at the corner of his mouth. "I'm going to kill you." Edward said with his sensuous seductive voice.

But Malloy didn't believe it, couldn't believe that this demon would kill him. Wouldn't Edward have done it already? Able to find Malloy twice and who knows how many other times that he hadn't noticed and Malloy had almost said it but didn't. Why tempt the fates? Why anger this demon that had probably killed his sister? "What are you?" He asked to fill the void of awkward silence.

"I'm a vampire."

The silence only grew.

"Sure you are. Next you'll say that werewolves are real and that somehow I'm related to the veritable darkness that walks the earth hidden in shadow." Malloy scratched at his hair in annoyance, fright and disbelief. "If you're a demon sent from hell then kill me, it's more believable then seeing a vampire."

Edward had looked shocked. It was an odd experience for them both.

"You don't believe me."

"Of course not you idiot!" Malloy said before thinking. He was shaking from fright but, now he couldn't retract what he had said. Might was well roll with it. "I'm a good ol' catholic kid born and raised in the church! I can recite psalms almost as immediate as I breathe air!" He laughed.

Sure he was a good old southern catholic but it was muted. He knew psalms because his grandmother Higginbotham had all but nearly beat it into him, the church had been an important part of the Higginbotham's life although his mother wasn't nearly so fanatical. And even after he had left the church when he was eighteen, not to say he left but moved away to college, he'd found that he didn't much like to go to church as an adult. Still, the thought of vampires was ludicrous. He could believe in demons and angels, God and the Devil but not vampires. No way.

"I don't think I've ever been quite so insulted." Edward grinned, showing two rows of perfectly straight white teeth. There were no pointed fangs. "But then again I've never encountered someone _else_ so well guarded, so difficult."

"What?"

He tapped the side of Malloy's head with his frosty cold fingertip.

"I can barely read you."

"Oh?"

"I can read minds."

"Of course you can." Malloy rolled his shoulders. "I've read a few vampire books, Ann Rice vampires read minds. That Armand fellow could, I think he could even create illusions."

"That's tasteless and insulting. I am nothing like those fictional vampires."

"What? You better then them? They were exceptional vampires I tell you. You say you're better? What, do you sparkle?"

If Edward could have flushed he would have. He stuck his hands into the pockets of his slacks and derived his attention to the world map on the wall as though embarrassed. To this Malloy gave a great loud laugh.

"Oh God you do, don't you? I would say that it sounds like you're more of a faerie though." He clipped Edward's shoulder hard once before moving towards the door. He motioned for Edward to follow him feeling less then afraid and more then a little amused by what must have been the most confusing and irritably innocent monster he'd ever laid eyes on. So old, you could tell in the eyes but also very truly young as though he couldn't quite understand how to be a man. Men would have barked laughter, would have been angered by being teased. But Edward treated the joke as any other awkward teenager would, without treating it at all. "Look'it here Edward Cullen, I don't know what you are. You say you're a vampire right? Well then, show me. I don't mean by killing anybody but show me."

"Mason."

"What?"

"My name is Edward _Mason_. Cullen was the cover up I used during the time I was with your sister." Edward cleared his throat.

"My sister...oh yeah, another thing, where is she? Old and gray or is she really dead like my mother said?"

But Edward hadn't answered. He didn't like to talk about Bella, never. Only from Edward's sister who visited from time to time, a priceless blond beauty, had told him. Bella had left Edward, had used him for immortality. That they had a child and that the child had been murdered in front of their eyes and Bella hadn't cared.

But tonight it wasn't that he was asleep in bed, it wasn't that he was at the table reading a book or watching the TV. He was in the shower when he felt Edward come into the streaming room. Through the glassy shower door he saw Edward sit cross-legged on the tiled floor and stare at him through the door. Edward did these sorts of things forget that people liked their privacy especially when they were naked. It happened so often now that Malloy wasn't even bothered by it, not like the beginning. "So, you're upset right? What happened this time? The murderer you killed didn't taste so good? Was it a dying person you were putting out of their misery? Don't feel bad."

And suddenly Edward was in the shower with him, holding him and showering Malloy's face in kisses. The differences in temperature cold and hot, the numbness that always lingered on his lips after these kisses and the burning need bellow were dizzying, maddening. "I've seen hell today; I have known hell when I'm not sure there is a hell." Edward said between kisses. "I linger in life for what? I am neither human nor beast but ethereal and nothing. What am I Malloy? WHAT AM I?"

"I don't know." Malloy breathed. "I don't know anything!" He shut his eyes tightly and then there was nothing. No one was in the shower with him and he could hear pots and pans banging in the kitchen cooking apparently. "Damn it man, you almost gave me a heart attack, if you want someone to kiss pickup and eat a hooker alright? I'm a **man** damn you!"

Dinner was set, rice and stir-fry cooling in their plates with a glass of red wine.

And Edward was gone.

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Atop a skyscraper watching the multitude of colors, lights of all shades and Edward Anthony Mason had never felt so utterly alone.

Time square wasn't too far off he could almost see it. He wondered how his family fared if they were alright and how...what had become of the sane ones. Where were Rosalie and Emmett?

"Ah but you wonder about that family? I thought that there was not a care for them now." The voice was rich and carried the testament of a time long ago. He was in red velvet coat, black clothing underneath always black. "But then what else would I wear?"

"Something more becoming of the ages."

"I do not change."

"Even so Romanus, you should make a change for the times."

Long cool fingers toyed with Edward tresses, touching the scalp in light massages. Oh, how he had missed Romanus, the ancient of the first brood. Older then Aro and his brothers and so strong! Beautiful God like Roman prince!

But it was Venice that Edward saw when he peered into Romanus' mind. Gondolas, Istria stone, the palazzo and the finery of ancient times. There was the scent of paint in Romanus' mind, a woman's name "Bianca" the courtesan with blonde hair decorated with real pearls, her softness and humming voice. There were parties and the scents of heady wine never drunk. And boys of various age all learning all beautiful and all enriched in love never known before.

"You overstep your boundaries young one." Romanus said now seated beside Edward. His blond curling hair was clipped today. "What have I told you?"

"To not go into your mind that I am not prepared to know what you are exactly as it is to have the wool pulled from my eyes." Edward said in monotone. He was looking out into the bright horizon lit by false light. New York was never dark. "How is Leah?"

"Well, she is adjusting to her new way of life though she enjoys the Paris streets and the theatre." Romanus nods. "Of course she is grateful for the opportunity to leave home. She looks no older then she did all those years ago, she so objects to giving up the wolf. Like Leah, I also wish that you join us again. Despite your scent to her and your ability she seems quite lost without you."

"Then she shall continue to be lost. I don't want the comfort of a coven I want the comfort of being alone." He said. He rested his hand on his bended knee. "But I'm curious about all of it. I thought she would be lost without the young painter friend, the one she loved so very much." He said. "How was it again? A car accident, something common right? I tell you though, I know what really happened. It was a wolf. It was that Sam Uley that killed him, that rammed into the side of that BMW. He went mad after Emily died giving birth to the still born child. Did you know that? About the imprint I mean? He had loved Emily because he was genetically made to do so but he always loved _his_ Lee Lee and I am certain that he killed Scott. I just know it."

"Oh?"

"Yes," Edward went on as though it was something that he had always known, a story of his to tell.

After Bella had left him and after Alice had died and his family had broken and even when Jacob had left his company because of Renesmee's murder Leah had stayed and had comforted him because they understood loss. Her brother had married and given up the wolf by then for many years and appeared so old. Her mother was dead. Her pack had moved on into humanity except for Sam and Jacob. She was alone and so was Edward. They'd found comfort in chiding one another and did not like or love one another for a very long time. But they longed for the intimacy of companionship and that was what was given. When they had met Romanus some twenty years ago they had followed him to Greece and had stayed with him living as a family in the great old house that Romanus had created just for them but by then Edward began to deprecate and Leah had fallen in love with Scott Baker, the young bohemian tourist from New Orleans. Edward had known it was time to let go and move on so he did.

"Contemptuous, self loathing son of mine, you don't know anything. Baker died on account of an accident and yes Uley was there but not in the way you so imagine. He'd been in the car and he had tried to save young Baker and had failed." Romanus shrugged his shoulder so human. "They'd met in Greenwich for lunch, Sam Uley lived in an apartment there and had seen Scott and had known him from Leah's letters and a past tumultuous affair during the days of young oblivious Emily. They had decided to drive to the country for some time alone when it happened."

"Lovers then they were lovers? Sam Uley was lovers with a **man**, I do not believe that."

"Then don't."

"I won't."

"Fine, then. I will not force you."

"You cannot make me."

"I said I wouldn't, you unpleasant odious child!" The roman vampire laughed. "I cannot make you believe what you do not wish to believe. Live in your sheltered self indulgence...of deprecation! For it is not a care to me! My beautiful child, my Edward, you cannot believe what is said ever. I find that it what I love most about you. Forever young in body and in mind, you who will never know what it is to be a man."

"I am a man, I only look like a boy," Edward scoffed. "I am a father and a husband. Of course I am a man."

Romanus laughed. "That does not make you a man it makes you a child playing house with a selfish human, it makes you a young father. There is no assurance in marriage and fatherhood; that does not make you a man."

Edward could only nod.

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**No flames, Reviews please.**


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